Massive - just massive - automobile brake

(click image to zoom)

So if you think about it, the brakes on cars are fairly ridiculous. Think about it. You’re hurtling down the highway at 80 mph, a good two tons of Detroit’s Finest at your fingertips, and some natty little hypermiler pops out in front of you doing 20 with his two kids in the back seat looking back at you as you slide in a howling cloud of smoke towards their precious lives and even more precious nearing-expiration Carpool Lane sticker on the back bumper. But I digress.

Each tire puts, what, 16 square inches of rubber on the ground? That’s all of 64 square inches total? What if - instead - we put a massive 48”x42” rubber foot on the bottom of the car, safely tucked up and out of the way for 99.9% of your driving? And what if, when you’re quickly closing in on said Prius with a trunk full of Trader Joe’s, your car would sense your panicked stab at the brakes, and drop - nay, shove - the massive foot onto the ground? Heck, it could even do some fancy ABS action to keep it from just erasing itself in the span of 30 feet.

And then, instead of 64 square inches on terra firma, you’d have 2,080 square inches of massive stopping power.